The electric mole rat acid test

Research suggests secret of creatures? imperviousness to feeling the burn

Web edition : Thursday, December 15th, 2011

When life gives naked mole rats lemons, the wrinkled, buck-toothed rodents probably don?t care. They are impervious to the sting of acid.

But scientists in Berlin are onto the secret of the social rodents? acid insensitivity. Naked mole rats? acid sensors work just fine, but a protein responsible for relaying messages about acid?s presence to the nervous system is easily blocked by the same positively charged hydrogen ions that lend substances acidity, researchers report in the Dec. 16 Science. The discovery may give researchers clues about where to target drugs that could relieve pain associated with inflammation.

?I?ve been trying to figure out this question in mole rats for a number of years, and the answer has been elusive,? says Thomas Park, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who was not involved in the study.

It was Park who first got Gary Lewin of the Max Delbr?ck Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin interested in studying naked mole rats. Lewin and Ewan St. John Smith, a postdoctoral researcher in Lewin?s lab, led the new research.

Mole rats live in large social groups in burrows underground. The crowded, confined conditions cause carbon dioxide levels to rise to as high as 8 to 10 percent of the air ? a concentration that would cause a person to pass out within five to 10 minutes. High carbon dioxide and low oxygen levels make body tissues acidic, something that is very painful for nearly all mammals. (Inflammation also raises acidity in tissues, producing pain.) If mole rats had not evolved a way to ignore acid the little rodents would be in constant agony, Lewin says.

Most researchers thought the animals? insensitivity to acid probably stemmed from a lack of functional acid sensors in pain nerves, says Harold Zakon, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin. ?But there?s a little unexpected kick here,? he says.

Naked mole rats do have fully functional acid sensors. ?To our great surprise they are all there and are even more active and easily opened? than similar acid sensors in mice, Lewin says. ?That left us in a bit of a puzzle.?

Usually when sensors detect acid or other substances, nerve cells change their electrical properties, then fire off an electrical message to the rest of the nervous system. The pain nerves in the naked mole rats change their electrical properties but never send the message, the researchers found.

?It?s as if, in the naked mole rat, acid is acting like a local anesthetic,? says Lewin.

The team traced the missing message to a protein called a sodium channel in the pain nerves. Naked mole rats have a slightly different version of the sodium channel ? named Nav1.7 in most mammals and SCN9A in humans ? than most other mammals, except for cave-dwelling microbats, which also live in chemically challenging environments.

The mole rats and bats have three amino acids near the hole of the doughnut-shaped sodium channel that are negatively charged. Those amino acids apparently attract hole-blocking positively charged protons more strongly than the amino acids found in the human and mouse versions of the protein. When the researchers engineered human cells with the naked mole rat version of the sodium channel, the human cells reacted like the mole rat cells do.

If researchers can figure out how to block the same part of the sodium channel in humans, the result could be a painkiller that takes away pain but doesn?t make people groggy the way many analgesics do now, says Geoffrey Woods, a clinical geneticist at the University of Cambridge in England.

Found in: Genes & Cells

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/336941/title/The_electric_mole_rat_acid_test

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Witness: Reflecting on Iraq as U.S. troops withdraw (Reuters)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) ? "Three days after U.S. tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003, I had my first encounter with an American marine. I opened my door to find him crouched on the street and holding a pump action shot gun.

He wore full combat gear, with knee pads and a heavy pack. I couldn't see his eyes through his black glasses. But he looked nervous. I asked him if there was a problem.

"He looked at me and said: 'Sir, we are here to protect you. We are here to liberate you from Saddam's regime and bring you elections to choose your president freely.'"

Reuters Baghdad correspondent Ahmed Rasheed says it was just a day after that first meeting that he began to realize the price his country would have to pay for democracy.

"I saw a U.S. army humvee rushing by, carrying four Iraqi men blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs. Nearby, looters were ransacking one of Saddam Hussein's palaces and the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the deposed dictator's former intelligence service.

"Looking nine years back, I cannot think of an Iraqi who has not been touched in some way or one who does not still struggle to avoid bombs or attacks, especially those conducted by assassins using silenced weapons - called 'ghost bullets' by Iraqis.

"For me, my country is still in a distressing state. After all these years of suffering and hoping to see a peaceful Iraq, I still can't get into my car without looking underneath to check if a magnetic sticky bomb is attached."

*******************************************************

As the last U.S. troops prepare to leave their country, many Iraqis are remembering the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and wondering what the future holds for them after the soldiers go home.

Their government is still a fragile coalition of Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish parties which struggle to make power-sharing function. Violence has fallen sharply, but bombings, attacks and assassinations still occur almost daily.

Like many of their countrymen, Iraqi journalists working for Reuters have experienced turmoil, suffering and loss. Here some of them reflect on the events that marked the U.S. military presence for them.

*********************************************************

Saad Shalash, photographer:

"Since the first day of invasion I was optimistic about the change we thought would happen. I thought we would be able to travel, I thought we would free, that the Iraqi economy would get better. I was wrong. A massive bomb attack in 2004 changed everything for me.

I had seen other blasts, like an attack on the United Nations. But this was the biggest attack I had witnessed and the closest.

I was working as a Reuters driver at the time. We were in the southern city of Kerbala when one blast went off. Another bomb exploded behind us. We tried to get away. We had just got around a corner when a third blast exploded. It was very close to me. Shrapnel hit my arm. I didn't notice until someone told me I had blood on my shirt. We heard two more explosions further away. I thought I would die there on that day.

I thought 'That's it, Iraq will continue with these bombings'. I was right. Even now I feel that car bombs can happen. I don't like to take my family outside now. These bombings became a part of our daily life. I feel they will continue after the U.S. troops pull out.

It is out of the government's control. We see no improvements in the standard of living, the power shortages, the infrastructure which is still destroyed - all these problems will just get worse. All I think about is keeping myself and my family safe and offering them the simple needs in life like water and electricity."

Suadad al-Salhy, journalist in Baghdad:

"I have experienced all kinds of threats in this country from all sides after the 2003 U.S. invasion, but for some reason I cannot get rid of two memories related to the U.S. presence.

The first was in August 2008 when U.S. soldiers stormed my parents' house after midnight, blocked us all in our rooms and arrested my youngest brother, just three days after the arrest of my father. He was arrested after the Iraqi translator with the soldiers got offended because my father had asked him to stop shouting because he frightened the children.

The Americans released my brother after 10 or 12 hours. He was detained after they stopped him and all the youths aged between 15 and 20 years old in the area. They asked a masked young man, an informant, to point out suspects to arrest.

The second incident happened in January 2010 when I was working in Ramadi. I was with some colleagues working on a story covering the high rates of birth defects and the relationship with depleted uranium and phosphorus weapons used by the Americans in their fight against insurgents in Fallujah.

My husband called me asking if I was okay. He did not tell me anything but his voice was wobbly.

I called our office in Baghdad; they told me three large car bombs had hit well-known Baghdad hotels, killing at least 36 people and wounding another 71. One of the hotels housed my husband's office at that time. The first blast occurred near an entrance, just a few meters away from his office. The office ceiling totally collapsed and the walls, which were mostly made of glass, crashed. My five-year-old daughter was with her ??father at that moment, playing in his office.

I tried to contact staff who were with him, but communications were really bad. After an anxious 30 minutes I was told my daughter was okay after her father picked her up out of the debris. But no one could tell me if they were injured or not.

The distance between Baghdad and Ramadi is not more than 100 km (60 miles). But the Americans closed all roads leading to the capital that day. I had to spend the longest and worst five hours one can pass as a mother.

Exhausted, I finally returned to the house. I was not even aware of the glass from all the shattered windows. It made no difference to me then. I found my husband there waiting for me, I rushed to his arms and collapsed crying. I could not believe the day was over and thank God my daughter and husband were alive."

Aseel Kami, journalist in Baghdad:

"I consider myself lucky so far because I was not forced out of my home, I was not shot at, I did not receive any direct threat, I was not wounded or maimed by an explosion like many Iraqis who suffered during the nine years of U.S. presence.

But one of the distinguishing moments that still clings to my memory is a horrific day when a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint in 2006, meters away from my home.

It was the holy Muslim month of Ramadan when my mother, my son and I were gathered around the table to break our fasting when all of a sudden a huge sound erupted and the glass of the windows shredded in all directions.

Without realizing what had happened, we jumped from our chairs and ran to an inside corridor thinking it would be safer. I was shaking and holding my son. My mother was uttering some words from the Koran.

Minutes later, I thought I should go out to find out what had happened and what was the cause. I went out into our garden and I could not see anything because of the dust from the explosion, I only heard voices of people screaming.

Our neighbors told us a car bomb had exploded.

I remember this moment because only a few minutes before the explosion, my son, six years old at the time, had been playing with his friends in the road. I had called him back so he could wash his face and dirty hands before we had our meal.

One of his friends, who stayed there longer, was injured in his stomach and the other lost the sight in one of his eyes.

Security may be much better than six years ago but bombings still occur daily, and that makes me worried all the time, about myself, my son and my parents.

A few months ago a mortar round landed near my son's school near the Tigris river, just across the fortified Green Zone, home for the U.S. embassy and many Iraqi officials.

Another memory that stuck in my mind was the dark humor I used to share with our Baghdad stringer (freelance correspondent) to lighten a little the dark days of the sectarian violence in 2006-7.

Almost daily we used to report on dumped bodies found in Baghdad streets. One day we reported up to 60 bodies found bound, blindfolded and shot in the head and chest.

Our stringer I developed a code to describe those kind of corpses - he just used to say 'full option bodies'.

I know it is cruel to deal with these tragic events by making jokes but this is how we managed to pass these difficult days."

(Editing by Patrick Markey and Mark Trevelyan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111215/ts_nm/us_iraq_withdrawal_witness

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Islamists pursue gains in Egypt's phased election (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egypt's rival Islamist groups sought more gains in the second round of a parliamentary election on Wednesday, with liberals also fighting for a voice in an army-led transition that began with the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt's first free election in six decades is unfolding in three stages until January. Even then, the generals who stepped in when an uprising toppled Mubarak in February will not hand power to civilians until after a presidential vote in mid-2012.

The pragmatic Muslim Brotherhood, its hardline Salafi rivals and a moderate faction won about two thirds of party-list votes in the first round. But the Brotherhood has signaled it wants a broad coalition, not a narrow Islamist front, in an assembly whose main task is to choose a body to draft a new constitution.

As in the earlier round, voting on Wednesday was largely peaceful but a polling station on Cairo's outskirts was shut when a gunfight erupted between supporters of rival candidates, a security source said. No one was killed. Seven people were detained by security forces deployed to restore calm.

"This is the first time our vote counts," said Fatma Sayed, a government employee voting in Suez east of Cairo, recalling the routinely rigged elections of the 30-year Mubarak era. "We want to retain our rights."

The military will still appoint the government, but the next parliament will have legislative powers. It will also pick a 100-strong assembly to write a constitution that will define Egypt's political framework after decades of autocratic rule.

The constitution is already the focus of a tussle between Egypt's newly-assertive political class and the ruling generals, and may also become a battleground for Islamists and liberals.

The army-backed cabinet sparked violent protests that killed 42 people last month after it sought to insert articles to shield the military from any future civilian oversight.

That fuelled suspicions that the army wants to cling to power even after the presidential poll now expected in June.

IRREGULARITIES

The first round of the parliamentary election was marred by many electoral violations, such as parties campaigning outside polling stations or the late arrival of ballots. One district will hold a re-run after ballots were damaged or lost.

The committee supervising the poll noted irregularities in the first round but said they were not serious enough to undermine the result and would be addressed in future rounds.

Troops outside a polling station in Suez tore down posters of candidates and parties on Wednesday. The Interior Ministry said the late arrival of supervising judges delayed the opening of 39 of the thousands of polling booths across the country.

A party list led by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) came top in the first round, with strict Salafi Islamists surprise runners up. Liberals were pushed into third place and are trying to close ranks to fight back.

"I think the major trend will continue (in the second round) with some minor changes. The FJP will be first, but I think the percentage will be reduced relative to the first round," said Hassan Abou Taleb, political analyst at the Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

He said some voters, concerned by the rise of Islamists who they fear could introduce religious strictures on society, might boost liberals, but he did not expect a significant swing.

The Egyptian Bloc alliance, which includes liberal parties founded just months ago in the wake of Mubarak's downfall, and the decades-old liberal Wafd party together secured about 20 percent of the votes for party lists in the first round.

Liberal politicians say they are trying to coordinate more effectively this time to avoid splitting their vote and revitalize campaigns with more active street canvassing.

Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie has sought to reassure voters, saying his group wants to work in a broad coalition and does not want a showdown with the army.

RAINBOW PARLIAMENT

"We will not rule Egypt alone. Parliament will include all the colors of the rainbow that must agree on one direction, one goal," he told a private television channel this month.

Some analysts say the Brotherhood might prefer to find non-Islamist allies in parliament, rather than lining up with the main Salafi al-Nour Party, in a bid to build a position in mainstream politics and avoid alienating chunks of society.

"There is a big difference between the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood. There is a real competition from an ideological perspective and also from their political experience," said Ahram's Abou Taleb.

Unlike the well-established Brotherhood, the Salafis had long spurned politics and are new faces on the political scene. Analysts say they have used long-established television satellite channels and mosques they control to make an impact.

Under Egypt's new electoral system, two thirds of parliament's 498 elected seats go to party lists and the rest go to individuals. The race is split into three phases, and each phase has a run-off vote for the individual seats.

Voting for each stage is held on two days. This time voting is on Wednesday and Thursday in parts of Cairo not covered last time round, Ismailiya and Suez to the east of the capital, Aswan and Sohag to the south, and Nile Delta regions in the north.

Official results are not expected until Saturday or Sunday as results are collated from outlying areas. But, as in the first round, parties are likely to indicate their performance sooner as they have representatives watching counting.

(Writing by Edmund Blair; editing by Alistair Lyon)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111214/wl_nm/us_egypt_election

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Elderly complain about pants search at NY airport

FILE - In this Aug. 23, 2008 file photo, an agent with the Transportation Security Administration works at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

FILE - In this Aug. 23, 2008 file photo, an agent with the Transportation Security Administration works at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

NEW YORK (AP) ? With age come such things as catheters, colostomy bags and adult diapers. Now add another indignity to getting old ? having to drop your pants and show these things to a complete stranger.

Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. One claimed she was forced to lower her pants and underwear in front of an agent so that her back brace could be inspected. Another said agents made her pull down her waistband to show her colostomy bag.

While not confirming some of the details, the TSA said a preliminary review shows officers followed the agency's procedures in both cases. But experts said the potential for such searches will increase as the U.S. population ages and receives prosthetics and other medical devices, some of which cannot go through screening machines.

"You have pacemakers, you have artificial hips, you have artificial knees," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "As we get older and we keep ourselves together, it's going to take more and more surgery. There's going to be more and more medical improvements, but that can create what appears to be a security issue."

Prosthetic devices can set off metal detectors, and certain devices such as catheters and bags are visible on body scanners, making those passengers candidates for more thorough inspections. Metal detectors and wands can disrupt some devices such as implanted defibrillators, so those passengers must ask for pat-downs instead.

Ruth Sherman, 88, of Sunrise, Fla., said she was mortified when inspectors pulled her aside and asked about the bulge in her pants as she arrived for a flight to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Nov. 28.

"I said, 'I have a bag here,'" she said on Monday, pointing to the bulge, which is bigger or smaller depending on what she eats. "They didn't understand."

She said they escorted her to another room where two female agents "made me lower my sweatpants, and I was really very humiliated." She said she stood with her arms and legs outstretched, warning the agents not to touch her colostomy bag. Touching the bag can cause pain, she said.

"It's degrading. It's like someone raped you," Sherman said. "They didn't know how to handle a human being."

The next day, agents took 85-year-old Lenore Zimmerman, of Long Beach, N.Y., into a private room to remove her back brace for screening after she decided against going through a scanning machine because of her heart defibrillator. Zimmerman said she had to raise her blouse and lower her pants and underwear for a female TSA agent.

Bruce Zimmerman, her son, said the agents "should've patted her down."

"To have her pants and underpants pulled down is just beyond humiliating," he said Monday. "This is my mother we are talking about."

The TSA said Monday that it is still investigating the cases.

"Our officers are committed to treating every passenger with dignity and respect," the agency said in a statement.

The agency insists that security concerns come first, even if it means getting into passengers' drawers. In 2009, a Nigerian man tried to blow up a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day with explosives in his underpants.

"Terrorists and their targets may also range in age," the agency argued in a blog post after Zimmerman went public. It cited the November arrest of four Georgia men, ages 65 to 73, on charges of plotting an attack with the poison ricin. Prosecutors said the men were part of a fringe militia group.

Last June, the daughter of a 95-year-old woman said TSA agents wouldn't let her mother board a flight from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to Detroit because her wet adult diaper set off alarms.

A TSA screener said Lena Reppert had a suspicious spot on her adult diaper, according to her daughter, Jean Weber. Weber ultimately took off the wet diaper so Reppert could be cleared in time for their flight.

The TSA said its inspectors handled the situation correctly and didn't ask Reppert to remove her diaper.

Such cases raise serious privacy questions, said Chris Calabrese, a legislative expert with the American Civil Liberties Union.

"It's a pretty fundamental invasion of privacy when you have to take your clothes off," Calabrese said.

Even lawmakers have complained about their treatment. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who has an artificial knee, told fellow members of a congressional committee that she dreads running into a certain TSA agent when it comes time for a pat-down at the St. Louis airport.

"I see her coming ... I like, you know, just tense up, because I know it's going to be ugly in terms of the way she conducts her pat-downs," McCaskill said.

The TSA says it has been trying to tailor its screening procedures for different types of passengers. In September it eliminated pat-downs for most children under 12 because of complaints from parents. In October it began testing an express screening program for frequent fliers at four airports.

The agency has formed an advisory committee of 70 disability groups to help adapt its screening techniques.

TSA chief John Pistole has said the agency is trying to train screeners to more quickly identify medical devices, such as catheters, to save passengers from embarrassment. He also said the agency might give preference to senior citizens going through the screening lines.

"We are looking at ways that we can recognize those of a certain age ... I don't want terrorists to game the system ? but of a certain age that would be given an expedited screening," Pistole told a Senate committee last month.

___

Kelli Kennedy reported from Sunrise, Fla. Associated Press writer Colleen Long in New York also contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-06-US-Elderly-Woman-Search/id-0f2b6ecbf46e4685b67dfc660c239cfe

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Brooke Mueller Arrested In Aspen For Assault And Dealing Drugs

Police say Charlie Sheen’s ex-wife, Brooke Mueller, has been arrested in Aspen on suspicion of third-degree assault and cocaine possession with intent to distribute. Authorities say officers arrested Mueller early Saturday at a nightclub after a woman reported being assaulted by her. Mueller posted $11,000 bond and was released from custody. She’s scheduled in court [...]

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Romney, Gingrich proceed carefully in GOP showdown (AP)

MANCHESTER, N.H. ? The once-bursting 2012 Republican presidential field is narrowing to a two-man race, and GOP voters have one month before casting the first votes to winnow it to one. Barring a dramatic new turn, their chief options will be the steady but often bland demeanor of Mitt Romney and the idea-a-minute bombast of Newt Gingrich.

Herman Cain's suspension of his campaign Saturday, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry's continued struggles to regain traction, have focused the party's attention on Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Gingrich, the former House speaker. They offer striking contrasts in personality, government experience and campaign organization.

Romney has maintained a political infrastructure since his 2008 presidential bid, especially in New Hampshire. Gingrich, whose campaign nearly collapsed several months ago, is relying much more heavily on his televised debate performances and the good will he built up with conservatives as a congressional leader in the 1980s and 1990s.

Gingrich's efforts appear to be paying off in Iowa, which holds first in the nation caucuses January 3.

A Des Moines Register poll released late Saturday found Gingrich leading the GOP field with 25 percent support among likely caucus goers. Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 18 percent support and Romney, who began campaigning in Iowa in earnest only recently, had 16 percent.

Gingrich's and Romney's political philosophies and differences are a bit harder to tease out. Both men have changed their positions on issues such as climate change. And Gingrich, in particular, is known to veer into unusual territories, such as child labor practices.

Gingrich, Romney and the other Republican contenders except former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman sat for interviews at a Fox News campaign forum Saturday hosted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who sought the GOP nomination in 2008. Questioned by three Republican state attorneys general, the candidates described ways they would scale back federal programs.

Cain's announcement in Atlanta offered a possible opening for Romney or Gingrich to make a dramatic move in hopes of seizing momentum for the sprint to the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus. Neither man did. They appear willing to play things carefully and low-key for now.

At a town hall meeting in New York sponsored by tea party supporters, Gingrich declined to characterize the race as a direct contest between himself and Romney. Any of the remaining GOP contenders could stage a comeback before the Iowa caucuses, he said. "I'm not going to say that any of my friends can't suddenly surprise us," Gingrich said.

But once high-flying contenders such as Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota have not managed to bounce back so far, despite weeks of trying.

Gingrich was careful when asked why voters should choose him over Romney.

"I'll let you decide. I think we are very, very different in a wide variety of ways," Gingrich said.

Romney seemed as eager as Gingrich to avoid casting the contest as anywhere close to decided. He repeatedly turned aside reporters' invitations to light into Gingrich, offering only gentle critiques. As usual, he aimed much sharper remarks at President Barack Obama.

"I don't think people have really settled down, in a final way, to decide who they're going to support in the nomination process," Romney told reporters in Manchester, where he held a rally and knocked on a few doors. "I hope they give us a good, careful look."

That was about as much emotion and daring as he showed all day. With the second-tier candidates ramping up their criticisms of Gingrich, Romney stuck to his steady-as-she-goes campaign style of criticizing Obama's economic record, and saying little else.

Cain's once-prospering campaign was undone by allegations of sexual wrongdoing. Gingrich has been the most obvious beneficiary of Cain's precipitous slide. But Perry, Bachmann and possibly others are likely to make a play for Cain's anti-establishment tea party backing. Time is running short for them to establish themselves as the top alternative to Romney, who has long been viewed with suspicion by many conservatives.

Cain said he would offer an endorsement. His former rivals were quick to issue statements on Saturday praising his conservative ideals and grassroots appeal.

Romney seemed loath on Saturday to criticize Gingrich or to stir the political waters. Reporters asked why his background makes him more qualified than Gingrich. "Speaker Gingrich has been a legislator and has worked in government affairs, and he can describe his own background," Romney replied.

Why are his positions better than Gingrich's on issues such as immigration, Romney was asked. "We have very similar views on a whole host of issues," he said. "There are some places, I'm sure, where there are differences." The biggest difference, he said, is "our life experience."

Asked if he fears that Gingrich will draw more tea party support, Romney said tea party activists "want someone who comes from outside Washington," someone who has spent his life "in the private sector, who has learned the experiences of the American economy."

"Speaker Gingrich is a fine person," Romney said, "but he spent his life in Washington, the last 40 years. That doesn't exactly line up with the tea party."

He also said he differed with Gingrich on child labor laws. Gingrich recently suggested that children as young as nine should work as assistant school janitors, to earn money and learn work ethics.

Romney noted that Gingrich would end taxes on dividends and capital gains for everyone, whereas Romney would keep them in place for the wealthiest Americans.

Romney's generally mild reproofs contrast with the hits Gingrich is taking from rivals such as Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Paul's campaign is airing a video accusing Gingrich of "serial hypocrisy." It shows Gingrich in a TV commercial with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., talking about the dangers of climate change.

Gingrich has called the Pelosi spot a stupid mistake on his part.

Romney's campaign had hundreds of volunteers knocking on doors and making phone calls Saturday, pushing a slogan that presidential hopefuls must "earn it."

Romney has a vacation home in New Hampshire, where he is well known. His campaign structure there isn't perfect, however.

Aides sent reporters to 827 Chestnut Street in Manchester, where Romney would start some door-knocking of his own. But there was no one home at 827, or the next house he tried, or the three after that. In nearly an hour of door-knocking, Romney met only a handful of voters, and all of them already seemed in his corner.

Asked at the day's end why he was being so gentle with Gingrich, Romney replied: "I think the right course for me is to continue talking about my vision for the country, my experience, and how I'd lead the nation. And Speaker Gingrich will get the chance to do the same thing."

___

Fouhy reported from New York.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111204/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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Mexico drug war refugees escape to more bloodshed (AP)

VERACRUZ, Mexico ? Rafael Echevarria had a steady factory job, a modest home of his own, and enough cash to occasionally take his family to McDonald's. It was a good life until the drug war hit Ciudad Juarez, followed by two robberies at his house, extortion at his daughter's school, and finally, the shootout on the bus.

When the firing began, 6-year-old Valeria dove to the floor, breaking a tooth. There was so much blood from her mouth wound, her parents thought she'd been shot.

The next day, the couple and their two children boarded a flight back home to Veracruz, along with 1,600 others who had once moved north for work in foreign assembly plants and now were fleeing south in search of safety. The Veracruz state government paid for the flights, and assured the drug war refugees that there would be jobs, education and housing.

At the time, it seemed to the Echevarrias like the only solution.

Then the drug war followed them home.

Military offensives against the drug cartels and turf battles among crime syndicates have pushed the war into areas once considered quiet. A year after their hopeful flight, the Echevarrias are not only caught anew in a crush of violence, but still without the promised help.

In Juarez, the Echevarrias had a house and a van. In Veracruz, they've had to pawn their appliances and move to a concrete hut to make ends meet. The trade of solvency for safety was a fake choice, because in Juarez, Echevarria said, "We would have been living well.

"Now we're in a hole. And it's very difficult to get out."

The Echevarrias are among thousands of Mexicans who make up the internal diaspora trying to escape drug violence that seems to migrate rather than cease, with more than 45,000 troops fighting cartels and more than 40,000 dead by many counts.

Recent survey results by Parametria found that 1.6 million Mexicans have moved because of drug violence since 2006. One study by the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre put the number at 230,000 in 2010, estimating that half fled to the United States.

Another study, by demographer Rodolfo Rubio at Colegio de la Frontera Norte, says 200,000 people left Juarez alone for other Mexican cities between 2007 and 2010.

Many of the affected are working class or poor who can't leave the country.

"People who have status or small medium-sized businesses don't have a problem going to the U.S.," said Genoveva Roldan, a migration expert at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez. "That's not the case for workers in the maquiladoras. They don't have that option."

Veracruz is a steamy, tropical mountain state that cultivates sugar cane and coffee. Curling along the lower dip of Mexico's Gulf coast, it is known for its scenic beauty, rich farmlands and busy port, one of Mexico's largest. But it was the lack of opportunity there that drove thousands of Veracruzanos northward beginning in the 1990s, when border factories started recruiting assembly workers with above-average wages and benefits.

Echevarria had grown up poor and left school in the ninth grade to help his father support the family. He joined the navy for a while, he says, and later became a taxi driver. But it wasn't enough to pay the bills.

In 2004, he and his wife, Alejandra Duran, decided they could build a better life in Ciudad Juarez for their two younger children.

There, Echevarria and his son, Cristian, found jobs working in the assembly plants that largely produce goods exported to the U.S. Cristian rose to quality control inspector in a factory that made printer cartridges. Together the two made about 14,000 pesos a month, nearly triple Mexico's average salary.

They bought a three-bedroom house on the southeastern outskirts of town, as well as a van.

"Juarez was a land that helped people," Duran said.

By 2008, the drug wars shattered the peace. Two rival cartels ? Juarez and Sinaloa ? began fighting for control of the lucrative smuggling corridor to the U.S. The annual murder rate nearly doubled from 1,600 in 2008 to 3,100 in 2010.

President Felipe Calderon deployed thousands of soldiers to curb drug violence, and later federal police to patrol the streets and lead counterattacks.

Nonetheless, the Echevarria house was robbed twice. An uncle was attacked by a group of men trying to steal his car.

Then came the extortion. Valeria's teacher told the Echevarrias that gang members were asking for a weekly fee from the school.

It was hard to sleep, Echevarria said.

In early 2010, word got around that the Veracruz government was offering to evacuate the refugees and help them resettle.

The day after the bus shooting, the Echevarrias abandoned their house and left with a washing machine, a set of saucepans, a dining table, Valeria's dresser and her Disney princess chairs.

Once back in Veracruz, Cristian Echevarria got a job as a cashier in a convenience store, while his father decided to get a taxi driver's permit.

Valeria had stopped talking after the trauma of the bus shooting, instead spending her time drawing pictures of corpses in the graves that were found around their Juarez neighborhood. But she seemed to improve after enrolling in school.

Then-Gov. Fidel Herrera's administration also promised to transfer the title of Echevarrias' home in Juarez to a government-subsidized house in Veracruz.

That never happened. The phones to the offices set up to help the returning residents stopped working. A new governor, Javier Duarte, took office last December. Gina Dominguez, Duarte's spokeswoman, said the "social agenda" was going in a different direction.

"It was a good program on paper," she said. "But obviously the execution wasn't simple because it had to provide for everyone."

Herrera did not respond to requests for an interview.

Echevarria couldn't get help paying the 6,000 pesos for his taxi license plates.

Veracruz had long been a route for drugs and migrants coming from the south. For years it was dominated by the Gulf cartel, which had contracted with a gang of former army special forces ? the Zetas. Because the state and the port were controlled by one drug gang, it was quiet.

In early 2010 the Zetas split from the Gulf cartel, triggering a vicious war in the border state of Tamaulipas, just north of Veracruz. This year a government offensive to stop that drug war spilled the violence into Veracruz.

The bloodshed worsened in the last few months, when a third cartel thought to be aligned with Mexico's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, moved into Veracruz to try to take over drug operations.

The results of the cartel wars became visible to commuters in September, when a group of masked men stopped rush-hour traffic to dump 35 strangled bodies onto a main thoroughfare. Banners left at the scene claimed the dead were Zetas, though official reports have questioned their link to the drug gang. The victims included bricklayers, former police officers and a taxi driver.

The Echevarrias found themselves in a situation worse than the one they'd fled.

They had moved to a slum of concrete-block housing outside Veracruz to save 500 pesos a month in rent.

During a recent visit, Rafael came home looking pale, walked straight to the bathroom, and threw up.

"He has high blood sugar," said his wife. "He's under a lot of pressure because these are the worst years we've ever had."

The Echevarrias explained that they pawned their refrigerator and stove to pay for the taxi license plates, only to discover that driving a cab was no longer safe.

"They've kidnapped 10 taxi drivers. They asked me to sell drugs," Rafael said. "Yes, I'm scared. I need to provide for my family."

The Echevarrias now make far less than the average wage of $250 pesos a day, about $19.

Alejandra uncovered a saucepan filled with red rice. A loaf of bread sat on a plate. There was no milk. In a big black bag, they'd save plastic bottles collected from the streets to sell for 5 pesos a kilo.

Valeria, now 8, scratched at a rash on her neck. "I don't like it here," she said.

The family is ducking bullets again, but this time in their home.

Cristian said more than 20 men dressed as marines arrived a few weeks ago to their neighborhood, rifles in hand. Valeria heard the shots. Cristian pulled her into an inside room where the family waited.

In a separate attack, Cristian said, four of his childhood friends were killed and three others kidnapped.

The move to Veracruz was a mistake, he said.

When Cristian finishes high school in June, he will move back to their Juarez house and look for work. If he is successful, the rest of the family will join him.

The homicides there have dropped from 2,657 in the first 10 months of 2010 to 1,730 in 2011. They continue to fall.

Valeria doesn't remember the time when she wouldn't talk and only communicated with drawings, when she was a chipped-tooth girl who barely smiled.

But she has returned to drawing, this time a man dressed in a military uniform pointing a gun at another man with a pink spot on his belly. Three passers-by scream, "He's going to shoot!"

She titled it, "The governor saves the people."

_____________

Adriana Gomez Licon is a Mexico correspondent for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/agomezlicon

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111204/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico_refugees

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